


Beautiful

by breathedout



Category: Heathers (1988)
Genre: But at least it's funny?, Canon-Typical Cissexism, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Canon-Typical Misogyny, Canon-typical Drunkenness, Canon-typical Horrible Behavior, Canon-typical Slut-Shaming, Consent Issues, Dark Humor, Eating Disorders, Experiments with Tenses, F/F, Jealousy, Manipulation, POV First Person, The Male Gaze, Threesome - F/F/F, Unreliable Narrator, body issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:31:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You want to know how wrong you are? You want to know how 1985 it is, to be bunking with muff-divers? My friend Heather Duke has done it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> So, back in early September, I found out about the [femslash_today Porn Battle](http://femslash-today.livejournal.com/567840.html), via the notes on [evadne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/evadne/pseuds/evadne)'s [Because I Know Death So Well](http://archiveofourown.org/works/956933). And I thought: "hey, an event devoted to f/f sex writing? With prompts involving small fandoms? Hot damn! Maybe there'll be something that inspires me, and I can write a little ficlet before the deadline in three days." Ahahaha. Ha.
> 
> Somewhere along the line, in the two months and 9K words since, I also forgot about half the original prompt, which was "Heather Chandler/Heather Duke/Heather McNamara, spin the bottle." So, apologies, there is no spin-the-bottle herein. Although there is a sleepover, which is sort of the same ballpark. 
> 
> **I also feel like I should warn for all the terrible horrible cruelty of being a teenage girl you could possibly imagine, on this one.** It is…maybe the darkest thing I've ever written. I mean I think it's pretty funny, and it's a little bit redemptive in a political way, but it's definitely jagged-edged. Mind the tags, is what I'm saying.
> 
> Huge thanks, not only to [evadne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/evadne/pseuds/evadne) and the [femslash-today](http://femslash-today.livejournal.com/) people (and the anonymous prompter, I hope by some miracle you see this!), but also to the folks in Antidiogenes for tirelessly cheering me on, despite the fact that most of them had never seen _Heathers_ and must have been somewhat mystified that I was suddenly writing '80s teen-speak rather than a post-WWI Sherlock Holmes AU. Also, as ever, enormous thanks to [greywash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash/pseuds/greywash)/[fizzygins](http://fizzygins.tumblr.com/), for the ceaseless encouragement, fielding of ideas, impressively thorough knowledge of 80s shampoos and lip balms, and insightful and nuanced beta job. She is a treasure, and she makes this writing business twice as fun and three times as rewarding. <3

And god- _damn_ , Chet, you think because a girl's not enrolled at Remington University, she's some lavender bath mat? I mean, touching speech the other night, I could've brought it home to my parents—but Nick the Dick told me the whole thing. He said you were practically jerking off right in front of the whole team, the morning after Staci Carmichael invited you to the big Christmas party down at Delta Pi. Everyone knew what she'd done with Terri Merriweather, you said. Maybe you could get her to do it again. Blow jobs from high school girls just didn't rate, now that you might score a spot as the salami in a Staci Carmichael/Terri Merriweather sandwich. Nick said they had to hold you under a cold shower so they'd have enough time to sponge the jizz off the locker room floor. 

You know, I even asked him what Staci and Terri are supposed to have done? This is what a waste of brain-space you are, Chet. I stood in the entrance hall at Nu Omega Beta house and asked that asshole for the dirt on two sorostitutes who probably whored their way through every high school in Akron. And you know what he told me? You know what Nick the Dick told me, Chet? He said "You wouldn't understand."

 _I_ wouldn't understand. 

I know you've never been a high school girl, Chet. And I actually find it touching—I am actually fucking touched, that you and your buddies think those Delta Pi bitches dreamed up the idea of kissing each other during some lock-in party on Hell Week. I mean that is just—you want to know how wrong you are? You want to know how 1985 it is, to be bunking with muff-divers? My friend Heather Duke has done it. 

Heather _Duke_. You might not remember her. At the one Remington party I brought her to, your buddy Chugs said "Who invited the fun sponge?" and she spent the rest of the night locked in the bathroom puking up her lunch and crying into her copy of _Billy Budd_. Total cooze move, I gave her the ice treatment for a week. Little Heather still had some growing up to do. I mean: that July she went to summer camp. _Summer camp_. While _I_ was tanning in Carmel, under the eyes of a drool-worthy salsa instructor from Cancún. Funny, Alonso didn't share your boredom with blow-jobs from high school girls. You know what? Whatever. Fuck it. It's not my problem. 

What is my problem, is that in August I called our annual pre-school sleepover. Me, Heather Duke, and Heather McNamara: the most powerful clique in the school. We hadn't seen each other all summer, and there was serious goddamn business to be discussed. For one thing, a new girl in the neighborhood was getting all googly-eyed over Heather McNamara's boyfriend. And for another, a Westerburg lifer, Veronica Sawyer, who'd been doing time as a Brownie with the dweeb squad, showed signs of clawing her way up. She could do handwritings. She'd come in useful. We had fucking plenty on our agenda.

So we met up at Heather McNamara's house, one night when her parents were out of town. You should see their spread. I brought Heather to Remington a couple of times before she started dating Mr. Star Linebacker Ram Sweeney, who doesn't like his arm-candy fucking around. Too bad. She went over a lot better than Heather "fun sponge" Duke, with the Chugs of Nu Omega Beta. On top of that, the McNamaras are _loaded._ A tennis court, a sauna, and two jacuzzis levels of loaded. And they were in NYC for the weekend, leaving us to their four thousand square feet and their wine cellar. Jesus fuck, Chet. What's your parents' place like? A pre-fab McMansion in Cuyahoga Falls? How _very_.

Anyway, all the high-priority bullshit took us maybe until ten. Shelly Pearson's ass got stamped irrelevant and we okayed Veronica Sawyer for a chance. Heather McNamara told us about her trip to Saint-Moritz, which I swear to Christ she made less use of than an anorexic at a five-star buffet. The girl actually _hiked._ Gag me with a ski pole. Still, even her nature-documentary impression was bound to be more interesting than Heather Duke playing games of capture-the-flag with a bunch of horsey freshmen all July. We were out of Chianti, anyway. When the camp chronicles started up, I motored downstairs. 

But when I got back? Heather McNamara was doubled up on the floor, giggling. And for some reason Heather Duke's whole face was like, MAC Russian Red. "Are you gonna tell Heather?" says Heather McNamara, and Heather Duke like an idiot tries to shut her up without me noticing. I mean, what, right? What a fluff cycle, I was looking right at her the whole time. I'd been bored out of my skull by her two minutes before, but _now_ I was all ears. 

So I come in, swinging the corkscrew from one hand and the Chianti from the other. I'm like, "What've you got to tell me, Heather?" and I do my sweet little church-girl voice, which she _knows_ means her ass is grass if she doesn't speak up. But she still kept her mouth shut, with her face going from Ravish Me Red all the way to Black fucking Cherry, and my night is suddenly a _lot_ more fun. 

"You won't believe it," says Heather McNamara. 

Heather Duke goes "Shut _up_ , Heather," and I can, like, _feel_ myself grinning.

So Heather McNamara gets up on her knees and crawls over with her glass to the Chianti, which I can just tell is about to get spilled all over her parents' new carpet, but Hell, right? They're the ones who put in tan wall-to-wall and left their wino of a daughter with the keys to the wine cellar. Heather McNamara tops up her glass as Heather Duke turns to me and says "Drop it, Heather, okay?" with that beat-puppy-dog look she gets. Like I got where I am by rescuing fucking puppies. 

So I'm like "Heather," to Heather McNamara, "what is Heather's damage? Does she think there's a chance in Hell that I'm letting this go? What could possibly be this interesting in her scrapbook from Camp My Little Fucking Pony?"

" _Hea-a-ther_ ," says Heather McNamara, kind of singing it like we used to do on the playground, "got hot and heavy with a _girl_."

And Heather Duke, like the marshmallow she is, goes "Shut _up_ , Heather," blushing even harder. I mean, Jesus' tits. She may as well have told me straight out that it was true. 

God, I could have burst into song. 

"Ho. ly. _Shit_ ," I say, starting to laugh. "Our little Heather, giving it up to a cracksnacker. Are you a convert now, Heather? Should I phone up Lezzy Lizzie Bristow and set you up on a date to the carpet factory?"

"Shut up," says Heather Duke, again. "It wasn't like that."

"Tell her what it was like!" says Heather McNamara. 

"Go on, Heather," I say. "Did she trick you? Maybe she was such a diesel dyke that you thought she was a linebacker 'til you got her pants off and found a little something missing."

So Heather Duke goes "She looked like _you_ two," and Heather McNamara does this wasted hyena-laugh from the floor. "She _did_ ," Heather Duke says again, sounding like she might start blubbering. "She's a cheerleader in Elyria. Her name's Candi." 

I just couldn't stop grinning. Jesus, come September there was nothing Heather Duke would be able to refuse me. One word about Candi and she'd be crucified on the altar of shock-jocks and family values. The only people who would speak to her would be frat-boy losers panting for a piece of the action. 

"Why, Heather," I say. "I didn't realize the cheerleaders in Elyria had shares in comfortable shoes. Come on then, I want all the dirty little details, so Heather here will know what to look out for when she cheers at away games."

Out come the puppy eyes again, but by now I can't give a shit. I'm flying high. Christmas in August and the keys to the fucking Corvette, and I can see it in Heather's face that she knows there's no way out. 

So I'm like "All of it," and I kick at her foot a little with my toe. She kind of slouches into herself, and starts talking.

 _Well._ Apparently, Heather and Candi the cherrypicker cheerleader bonded in the dining hall over their mutual hatred of shared bathrooms and Jello Surprise. They made friendship bracelets and picked each other for teams. Then Heather, the night before the big group hike, sprained her ankle in a totally unplanned and not at all suspicious way, and Candi volunteered to stay behind and mop her tender brow. With her mouth, as it turns out. There was some tonsil tennis, and Candi got Heather's shorts off, which I imagine Heather fought a little because by that point it had probably been two weeks since she'd Naired her bikini line. And the girl's a goddamn yeti, I'm telling you. She'd have had the start of a redwood forest down there after a week or two. Candi must not have minded, though. Apparently she went down on her for _ages_. Heather clammed up at that point in the story, and I thought I would have to ride her ass again, but Heather McNamara starts yelling from the floor: "Did she use her teeth, Heather? Oh! Heather! Did you like it? Was she better than Todd Hinley?" and when she says that, Heather Duke makes this noise with her nose, and I swear it takes me a cold ten seconds to realize the bitch is _laughing_. 

Laughing. So I'm like "Damn, Heather. Was there a two-for-one special at the lobotomy clinic?" But she just snorts again, I can't believe it. She's laughing so hard she can barely _talk_.

"Todd never _did_ that," she gets out, finally. "He couldn't even figure out where to stick it." 

Look, I'm just saying, if I'd just had the butchered remains of my social life handed to me on Mrs. McNamara's rose-patterned serving platter, I might not be cutting up like Chuckles the goddamn Clown. But by now there are _tears_ rolling down Heather Duke's face. Heather McNamara is actually rolling on the floor. 

So I'm like "Sounds like Candi knew her way around a pom-pom routine," and Heather McNamara goes "Oh my _God_ ," like she might piss herself laughing.

I say "Go on, Heather, what happened next? Did she whip out a dillrod and start pounding away? Did she break your camp bed?"

"She," says Heather Duke, but she's like, hiccuping now, "she wanted to use her fingers, but I told her no, I said I wanted to—to stay a virgin."

"A _what_?" I say, at the same time Heather McNamara goes "In what _universe_ , girl?" 

And Heather Duke turns even darker, like Maybelline Brazen Berry dark. She mumbles something so quiet I can't even hear, so I chuck Mr. McNamara's Wall Street Journal at her and she goes, "Candi had like, two-inch nails."

Heather McNamara just _shrieks._ She's kicking her feet right up next to the Chianti bottle. And what the Hell, it's good wine, right? So I get up and pour myself another glass and then put the bottle back. 

And I drink it while Heather Duke dishes to us about how Candi went on to kiss her, and rake her claws down Heather's ass, which: I shudder to think of the state of Candi's manicure after two weeks of crafts and canoeing and shit on the shores of beautiful Lake Erie. And then— 

Okay. In my defense, at this point Heather Duke is still kind of cry-laughing, and hiccuping too. She sounds like a fucking psycho, to be honest, and I can't understand what she's saying. I mean. Okay. Miss Chandler's All Ages Honesty Hour: maybe it has something to do with the Chianti I've drunk, too. The point is that she's describing Candi, like, hauling her ass back up and on top of Heather and then twisting around the other way, with one thigh in Painesville and the other over in goddamn Ashtabula, and it seems to me like everyone's got about six hands, like something from the drive-in horror flicks I snuck out to watch with my seventh-grade boyfriend. I figure she's just making it up, you know? What happened next was _not_ my fucking brainwave, Chet. Even though you'd probably come in your khakis if you thought it was.  

Anyway. I'm like, "Shit, Heather, that doesn't even make _sense_ ," and she stops and stares at me like _I'm_ the one growing extra arms and legs. I'm like "This has been a nice little trip to Neverland, but even if you could get _into_ that position, it's not like it would get you off."

"You don't think so?" she says. 

There's an actual _gleam_ in her eye. Like—smug, you know? Like the time when I was six, and Danny Jensen was just positive I wouldn't do a cannonball off the high dive at the Sherwood Heights Municipal Swimming Pool. Like sweet little Heather thought she had something on me. I'm so sure. 

So I take a sip of my wine and I'm like, "Show us. Come on. You be Candi the rug-muncher, and Heather here can be you." 

And to her credit? Heather Duke just gets up off the sofa and yanks off her t-shirt without a squeak, and then she keeps on going. She's out of her flannel shorts, in just her bra and her Scooby Doo panties, before anyone can say shit. And even then, it's not even Heather who speaks up; it's Heather _._

Heather McNamara, I mean. She's standing up on her own two feet in front of her mom's glass-topped coffee table, with her BFF half-naked on the other side of it, and she goes "No." And then she goes, "Ram wouldn't like it."

I'm like, "Are you shitting me?" I mean, was she shitting me? "Ram would cream every pair of pants he owns, thinking about you getting tongue-fucked by Heather." 

"Yeah," says Heather Duke, giggling like she wasn't the walking wounded. "He wouldn't have any left. They'd have to take him off the team."

And then I'm laughing. I can't help it. Some things are just funny, and Ram "punch it in" Sweeney getting sent home from football practice with his tighty-whities full of man chowder, is one of them for sure.

But Heather McNamara doesn't even crack a smile. Instead her chin starts to tremble like it sometimes does—and Jesus' balls, has nobody at Westerburg hit puberty except me?

"Ram's not like that," Heather says. "You don't understand. He had a cousin who went to a music festival once? Out near Smith? It rained and she had to stay in a tent with a couple of women who played on a softball team. He said she came back with a flannel fanny pack, and hasn't worn eyeliner since." 

And she nods, once, like a little kid whose friend's babysitter's brother had just let her in on Santa's favorite color, and now she was gonna tell _you_. Goddamn tragic, I don't know why I bother. But then she goes: "Heather should do it to you."

So I'm like, "Oh I'm sorry. Did, I don't know, Wade Boggs stop by while I wasn't looking, and hit you out of the park with the stupid stick?" 

I look over at Heather Duke, but the cream puff just stands there. She's about as much help as a cardboard Victoria's Secret cutout, if Victoria's actual secret was the guilty love between Shaggy and Velma.  

"You're not seeing anyone," says Heather McNamara. "It'd be okay for you."

Okay for me. I'm so sure. It'd be giving up any hold I had over Heather, that's what it would be, but... I didn't shut her down, did I? I don't even know—. I don't know if it was the Chianti, or that busted holiday feeling you get when you were laughing so hard a minute before and now you think you might cry, or the way Heather Duke suddenly looked bizarrely nervous, standing there in her stupid cartoon bikini. Hell, maybe it was the memory of Danny Jensen when I stared down at him from the edge of the high dive, and then bent my knees and jumped, and kept my eyes open to watch his face, all the way down. 

Whatever it was, what comes out of my mouth is, "Saddle up." And I turn to Heather Duke and shove off my pajama bottoms. Stupid. I've always been stupid about dares. Not a total piece of piss, though: I think to grab the rest of my Chianti and tell Heather "Gargle with this, I don't want your dinner's second coming all over my snatch."

Usually bringing up her passion for puke puts a damper on Heather's good spirits. Not this time, though. She just sidles up in her undies and stands in front of me with a little smirk. I smirk back, and take out my scrunchy. She takes my glass and drains it in one, and Heather McNamara across the room does a stupid little whoop. At this point I'm wondering if she's gonna chant us on to victory. Heather Duke with her face between my legs, and Heather McNamara doing the splits on her mom's beige wall-to-wall Berber, cheering _Let's! Get! Physical! And Beat That Other Team, Go! Westerburg!_ I'm almost laughing, thinking about it. Then I meet Heather Duke's eyes and I _do_ laugh, and so does she, and she makes this little face behind Heather's back like Heather McNamara sometimes makes when she's not expecting something, and I wasn't expecting _that_ , so I laugh even harder, and Heather Duke's big grey-blue eyes go all narrow and tickled fucking pink. 

Whatever, then I pull off my pajama top. It was a nice little Hallmark moment, okay? Christ on a stick. 

So Heather goes "Actually, I was still wearing my t-shirt," and she smirks like stripping was some kind of massive fuck-up on my part, when I'm just along for the ride, you know? I had to think for a second, but then I'm like "And your little basket-tosser friend, she was in her bra and panties?" since obviously, from what Heather'd said, Candi had been in practically a full-on snow suit by comparison with her. Heather just bows her head a little, like I've got a point and we're even now. But I still, like—feel like I'd lost out. Stupid. 

But then Heather Duke drops to her knees, and—oh, but now you want me to go on, don't you, Chet? If you were reading over my shoulder right now and I choked up, you'd be begging me to tell you the rest of it. Cooling your heels with a high school girl would seem suddenly Very. You'd want to hear all about how she put her hands on my thighs to spread them, with her baby-pink nails digging in, and how her hair was still pulled back into a ponytail, so it didn't get in her way when she leaned in to lick me, long and slow, with her tongue all the way out so I could see. You'd want to hear about how she looked, when she glanced up my body and smiled and maybe moaned with her wet, lipsticked mouth, flicking, and sucking, and how I arched up—.

Well. That's not how it went. 

Actually, it was just—it was just weird, okay. She didn't tease and she didn't look up. She just pulled me apart and dug _in_ with her tongue like she was chowing down on a melting ice-cream cone and she had to motor before it dripped all over her hands. She did it hard and she wasn't careful with her teeth, and I just jerked away before jack could really happen.

And I said "Jesus fuck, Heather!" or something like it, I was too busy jumping out of my skin to commit it to fucking memory. She jumped, too. Jumped back, with her hand on her heart like I'd come around a corner and snapped her with a towel.

"Maybe you _are_ on the other bus," I said. "Is that really how Candi did it to you? And you liked it?"

She bit her lip, and brought the puppy eyes out again. I've got to hand it to her, she knows how to turn it on if you give her long enough. Not such a fun sponge as your friend Joe might think. I let her do her thing if it made her feel better. Even Ted Bundy'll get a steak and tater-tots before they fry him. 

"I guess not," she says.

"Well shit, Heather, eyes on the prize, all right?" 

"I got nervous," she says. "It's hard to think."

And then I feel that spark, you know? I feel it, I'm gearing up to _ream_ her. So I'm like, "I guess it would be hard for me too, yeah, if _my_ brains had been pumped into my skull through the soft-serve nozzle down at the Dairy Whiz. You—" and I'm just starting to get up some real steam, when Heather McNamara says "You started slow." 

So I laugh, right, thinking she meant Heather Duke. That Heather's always been a few cans short of a six-pack. But that's not it at all. 

Heather McNamara's somehow come around the coffee table, without me noticing. Now she's standing right behind Heather Duke, who's still kneeling on the floor, and Heather McNamara says "No, I mean, I don't mean you, I mean—you said Candi started slow." 

We're just staring at her, Heather Duke and me both. For a minute I even forget to feel like a dumb-fuck, half-sitting on Mrs. McNamara's baby-blue easy-chair, with my panties off and my legs spread. Then I _do_ feel like a dumb-fuck, but I keep on staring at Heather anyway, right up until I feel something brush against my thigh. 

So I'm like "Christ on a—Heather," because of _course_ it was Heather Duke, scooting back between my knees but still looking over at Heather McNamara. 

"Yeah," says Heather Duke. She sort of tongues up the inside of my thigh. I'm still not, like, jumping on the tommy train, but at least now she's acting less like a rabid bitch. She kisses my leg and I think about my shower that morning. Whether I still taste like Pantene, and when was the last time I shaved. Then I feel like a mulehead for worrying about shaving when it's only fucking Heather, Westerburg's soon-to-be social pariah, nuzzling her face into my knee and my thigh and saying into my skin, "Remind me?"

I go, "What?" but Heather McNamara says "She um. She kissed up the inside of your leg." 

Heather sounds kind of embarrassed and kind of—kind of _fascinated_. Like the two of us are the most amazing thing since legwarmers and shoulder pads. Like she's watching something mind-blowing, instead of just Heather Duke in her Scooby-Doo undies, smearing her Lip Smackers into my thigh. I want to laugh, right? But I look at her face and I—well I guess I just don't feel like it.

And she goes "You said she licked you, like. Um. With her tongue kind of flat? But—"

"What are you oozing about?" I start to say. I mean: schizo much? I'd had to ride Heather's ass for five minutes straight before she'd admitted that Candi ate her out at all. Forget treating us to a slow-mo play-by-play of the cunt's dining technique. But Heather Duke, with her tongue kind of flat just like Heather had said, licks up the center of me, and my voice squeaks like a fucking mouse, and I can't finish.  

"No," Heather McNamara says, and Heather pulls back. "Around the, um. The outside, first, she went around the outside until she—until _you_ got used to it." 

So Heather Duke comes back with her tongue and kind of—kind of flicks at me, one side and then the other. And it's better. It's a lot better, I just—I keep looking down at her, at the little fold between her eyebrows that reminds me of her face whenever Mr. Howard calls on her in Algebra II. It means she's concentrating really hard. She tries not to make that face because her third-grade teacher told her it would give her wrinkles, but now, right now she's doing it. I think she must—must be getting hair in her mouth. I guess she doesn't mind. I'm not sure whether to move or not. I keep forgetting it's just Heather. I've got her whole fucking life in my hands, I can do what I want. But she makes these serious little noises and keeps it up with her tongue, with that look on her face like Algebra II.

"And um," says Heather McNamara, who's right up next to us now. Craning her neck to see what Heather was doing with her mouth. I'm staring up at her face like an idiot and she says "Um, kind of suck a little? Still on the sides, not, um. Not at the top." Heather Duke kind of sucks a little. Still at the sides. Not at the top, and that's. Very— 

"Something you, fuck, need to tell us about Varsity cheerleading camp?" I get out, but it's hard to keep track of the words. I'm  starting to want to move my hips. Like, really want to. And it's not that I give a shit about—Heather, or whatever, I just. It's like my own squeaky goddamn voice is playing over the top of Heather McNamara's ("point your tongue a little, um. Not too hard") and it's saying, like, _Why Heather, I didn't realize_ and _flannel fanny pack_ , and I don't want to. I really fucking want to but I don't want to. And my face is getting hot, it'll be like, Twizzler red, and shiny. And I'm thinking about how I can feel my foundation going all cakey on my face, and wishing I'd reapplied in the McNamara's new blue-linoleum bathroom. And then: why wish that? Fuck, it was only _Heather_. I don't need makeup. I don't need to move my hips. 

But I feel my mouth open. I'm breathing through my mouth while the future whipping girl of Westerburg High teases me with her tongue with a look on her face like my pussy's a tough word problem, or like a—like an ass-out passage of _Moby Dick_. "Up a little, up," says Heather, and Heather goes up a little, up, and that's—Christ. That's a whole different galaxy from how it felt the first time she'd tried. And I can't help it: I buck my hips up. Heather Duke makes a noise like my golden retriever used to when I took his dinner away in the middle of it to watch him whine, fucking Hell. I do it again and she whimpers, and I can feel along along my thighs and my calves that she's shifting her ass on her heels, twitching around like a kid that needs to pee. I should laugh 'til I puke, but I just do it again. Again.

"Little um, harder, Heather," Heather says. 

But now it's like Heather Duke is goddamn hypnotized. Her eyes are closed and her face is all wet, and she's got this rhythm going with her tongue. Every time I push up against her mouth she like, cries out, and digs in her fingers on my thighs, and squirms around on the Berber. But she doesn't go harder. 

I'm like "Heather said _harder_ , Heather," thinking about the caf. Thinking about the voice I use when she bends over for me in front of everybody. Instead I sound like I'm trying to run a goddamn marathon after a night sucking cock, and she doesn't go harder.

It's like we're both trapped in this bizarro video loop, some MTV nightmare where the countdown sticks on "Didn't We Almost Have It All." I'm just lying there, barely moving, my whole skin ultra-sensitive like that hour after you come in from the pool and you're not sunburned yet but you know you will be and you know it will be _crucial_. I don't know if I even thought about sunbathing right then, staring down like a dipshit at the top of Heather's head. I'm not sure if I thought about the pool, or the high dive, or that aching feeling when your top layer of skin is all pink and hot and like, vibrating on top of your blood, and you can't get comfortable; and you need something, cold water or calamine lotion or _something_ to take the edge off or you won't be able to sleep, won't be able to sit or think or have conversations with assholes about shit that doesn't matter. I don't know if I thought about any of that, but it's how I felt, hot like my skin was wrong and aching and wet and it was going to get worse, soon it would fucking _hurt_ but if Heather would just go _harder_ then it would be—

There was a rustle above me and I looked up into Heather McNamara's eyes right above me as she reached down and pushed on the back of Heather's head, pushed her hard against me and let me push hard against her. And then.

Bursting. Heat. Really _fucking_ brilliant, _Jesus_ , juice from a grape bitten through, hot from the sun, ripe off the vine, I've never. I never had, before then. 

All right? Douchebag? I never had.

I come down stone cold, because of, on the one hand, Heather McNamara hauling Heather Duke back by the hair so she'll stop trying to eat me like a fucking peach, and on the other hand this like, clamping-down thing that happens in my chest when I see Heather Duke all wide-eyed and whining and desperate-looking, moving like her legs won't work, stumbling back onto her knees and still staring at me with her face all blotchy and and shiny and her stomach making a little roll over the top of her bikini elastic, because she's not thinking about sucking it in. And I'd just forgotten about, like. My own _name_ , for a second. Right then I want to kick her like a dog. 

And I get up off the easy chair to do it, but Heather McNamara, who up to this moment I swear to Christ has never shown so much as a glimmer of what my father would call "leadership skills," puts her hand on my shoulder and stares me down. Of course anywhere else she'd have a snowball's chance of pulling it off, but there I am in just my bra, wet and tacky down my thighs, and by comparison Heather's Calvin Klein nightie looks like a goddamn power suit. 

Heather McNamara says, "Heather was going to show us what else she did with Candi." And Hell, I'd forgotten about the point of this whole thing, that Heather Duke'd got wet and wild with a skirt-lifting cheerleader from Elyria, or else lied and said she had. And I'd _forgotten_. It was like—like waking uphalfway through a campaign for prom queen, and wondering what all these goddamn cupcakes were for. That thing in my chest just clenches down again, like jaws. Like the slimy slithering _Alien_ baby, trying to chew its way out. Heather's still standing there: hand on my shoulder, staring into my eyes.

So I go, "I'm not a powder puff, Heather," and shook her hand off my shoulder. "It was me who had the idea in the first place." 

And I turn to Heather Duke, who's still on the floor with that glazed, needy look in her eyes, and her face a mess, and I'm like, "Well, Sarge? Where do you want me?"

"Uh," says Heather Duke. Panting like a dog. Sweating. Impossible I was such a disaster. "On the—on the floor," she says. "Get on your back on the floor."

So I get on my back on the floor. Heather Duke looks like she might faint, that I did it for real. Her mouth is hanging open and she's staring, and it flashes me back to—to Junior Prom—to freshman-year haunted house—to ice-skating lessons in seventh grade: Dan Harmon's face when I let him put his hand up my shirt out in back of the rink one night when my mom was late picking me up. That look. It's like—I don't know. The alien baby lets me go a little. I know what to do with that look. 

But fuck if I'm gonna to help Heather along, not after what she pulled. So I just lie there, with my legs open and one eyebrow raised, and she kneels down and stares at me and her eyes get wider and wider. The smell of panic. Goddamn. It gets me every time. 

And Heather Duke is like, fidgeting, and gasping on her knees. She looks at me and looks at me and I think her eyes might bug out of her skull, and then she looks over at Heather McNamara and opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. And I laugh at her, and it feels good. I can breathe almost right again. 

And Heather McNamara goes, "You said. Um. You said she was kind of, of—." She blushes to match the pink of her nightie.

So I'm like, "Color me shocked, Heather. You didn't have any trouble playing personal trainer when she had her head between my legs."

And now she's darker than her nightie. Heather Duke is staring at Heather McNamara, her hands in fists. For being half-naked on my back on the floor I'm feeling almost normal again. 

"What?" I say to Heather McNamara. "Your female intuition doesn't get quite this female?"

"Okay," she says, finally, biting her lip. "Okay," and she goes over to Heather Duke and gets her halfway-standing, enough to more or less drag her on top of me. "Okay," she says again. "You said—like this? Right?" propping Heather up over my left thigh, spreading her knees on the carpet. "Like this?" and Heather Duke nods. "Like this?" And every time she touches her, Heather Duke leans in toward her hands and kind of moans. She's got her her eyes closed. Moaning. 

"What happened then, Heather?" I say, because I want them open. "What did your bull dagger cheer buddy do to you then?"

Heather Duke bites her lip. She won't look at me, but she's making little thrusting motions with her hips. Like she wants to ride my thigh like her pony from middle school.

"You said, um," Heather McNamara says. She's got Heather Duke more or less into position now, but she keeps touching her: her shoulders, her hair. "You said she got up close, really close, um. With her hips right on top of your hips? Like—?" and Heather McNamara reaches over me, moves my right leg up to make room for Heather's knee. Heather gets a hand on Heather Duke's ass and a hand on her belly, and moves her up my leg. And Heather Duke's eyes are _wide_ , staring ahead as she thrusts from the hip and Heather McNamara holds her up. I can feel her wet through cotton, high up on my thigh; and if I shift right, Scooby's dripping face just barely brushes against my cunt on every thrust. 

I say "Jesus Christ," and even I can hear it sounds more like an invitation than a put-down. Heather Duke slips, and slides.

And Christ in a kilt, for a bitch with high ideas about her boyfriend's lezzie cousin, Heather McNamara doesn't seem too eager to go stand in the corner like a good girl and think about what she's done. She keeps _touching_ Heather all over: her stomach, and her thighs; putting her hands in her hair; and I can't say I really blame her because Heather's _reactions_ were just. _Very_. A hand to the small of her back and she'd gasp and grind into me, wet cotton against my clit. 

Heather McNamara's got that look on her face again, like she's down south looking at the Virgin Mary in some housewife's pancake batter, instead of touching Heather Duke and watching her squirm. Her chin's trembling. She's biting her lip. She gets her hand behind Heather Duke and unhooks her bra, and Heather moans like a full-on porn star and rubs down against me. And I—could. I just. Realize I could, again, looking up at Heather looking down at where we're playing crotch-hockey, with Heather McNamara running her hands up under the cups of Heather's green cotton bra.

Heather McNamara puts a hand on Heather Duke's cheek to get her to open her eyes. Heather doesn't want to. I can tell. She turns her face into Heather's palm and Heather McNamara moves her hand and moves her body so her face is turned away from me, and she whispers in Heather's ear like I can't hear: "Is this okay?"

And I'm like "Fucking Hell, Heather," in that fucked-up squeaky voice, " _look_ at her. How could it be more okay?" as Heather Duke grinds into me again and nods her head, over and over and over like she's never gonna stop. I kind of thrust up, to see what will happen, it seems like she might actually _cry_.

It's like—Christ, I don't know how to explain it. It's like I'm two different people, and my head's spinning between them like it would four beers into a roller-coaster ride. Or like I'm, I don't know. Two shells of skin, nested inside each other, and in the very center is that baby alien, thrashing around next to my heart. Half an hour before I could've done whatever I wanted with Heather Duke. I could've used her up or cut her off, and nobody at Westerburg would have thought twice. Half an hour before, I'd only ever lain still, and smiled, and if Brian or Brett or Ben fucked up my lipstick then I'd gone to the bathroom right after and fixed it. And now Heather is sweating like I'd been sweating. Panting like I'd been panting. And I stretch out a hand, and put it on her hip, and I don't know. I don't know until the last second if I'm going to feel her or hit her. Even after I do it I don't know for sure.

"You put on a show like this for Candi the cheerleader?" I say. And Heather Duke—she makes a face like I really did sock her. I wish I hadn't said it. She shakes and shakes her head. 

Heather McNamara says, "Christ," and I want to hit her. She gets her mitts back on Heather Duke's face, and swings her leg over my stomach and my thigh, so she's straddling me with her back to my face. 

I'm like "Oh," but they ignore me. "That's. Nice. Beautiful, thanks."

Because Heather McNamara's got her elbows bent, reaching up to touch Heather Duke's face. Heather Duke's whimpering and even though she's still rocking against me it's more distracted. Heather McNamara's blonde curls are moving as her head moves, but I, mouth-breather that I am, don't realize until Heather Duke's hands come up around her waist, that they're honest-to-fuck kissing. 

I make some kind of words, when the penny finally drops. "Oh fuck," or "Jesus tits" or something, I don't remember, because what's really cheesing me off, right then, is that I can't _see_. I can see Heather Duke's cotton-candy manicure running up and down Heather McNamara's back over her night-gown, and I can kind of guess about how Heather McNamara's hips are moving toward Heather Duke's hips. And I can hear them. Slick-wet face-sucking sounds and these quiet little moans. But Heather's hair is this fucking _cloud_ around the back of her head, and I can't see, and I. 

I _want_ to. Jesus fucking Hell. 

I want to do _something_ , anyway. I can't look at them and they for damn sure aren't looking at me. Heather Duke is hardly even riding my thigh and my pussy anymore. Just thrusting a little in these short little wavery bursts. Her hands are on Heather McNamara's back, and then on her waist, and then one comes down to rest on her ass, and I—I reach over and put my fingers in the gaps between hers. Heather McNamara makes this surprised little squeak and a jump, but Heather Duke's noise is something else. She presses her hand closer around my hand, pulls both of us hard against Heather. It's kind of hypnotizing. I feel like she's holding me there, even though she's not. She's squeezing my hand and Heather's ass in a rhythm now, moaning, pink nails down-pointing in the cradles of my knuckles, red ones up-pointing in the joints of hers. Neither of them can see it but they must know how it looks because I'm red, they know I'm always red. Heather Duke is rubbing off on my thigh again, nudging—nudging—nudging me with the soaked-through cotton of her panties.

And then Heather McNamara's cotton nightie is lifting up on the other side. It's a trick trying to figure out her reactions when Heather Duke is being so fucking distracting, starting that sparking tightening feeling again inside me as she nudges and thrusts, but it seems like Heather McNamara has dropped her head to Heather's shoulder. And like she's maybe breathing hard, and I just fucking know Heather Duke's got her other hand up her, but I still can't goddamn _see_. 

So I push. Harder on her ass and at first Heather Duke doesn't cotton on; she just groans louder and grinds herself against me and Christ my whole thigh and my hip are just drenched, but neither of them move. So I move my hand lower, push _up_ , _up_ , so that Heather McNamara kind of falls forward and then pushes halfway up to standing, with me forcing her ass up the rest of the way, and then her nightgown up around her waist, as she's clutching on to Heather Duke's shoulders. 

And _now_ Heather Duke gets it, because I can see, fucking _finally_ , kneeling between Heather McNamara's five-mile legs, when her mouth and her big blue eyes go wide at the same time. 

I say, "Come on, Heather." And Jesus, how many times have I said that, _Come ON, Heather_ , turning my back, queen of Westerburg. This time I didn't sound like a queen. I sounded like a fucking alkie at last call. 

So she stares at me through Heather's legs, and I swear, I'm holding my breath, watching her. And then she leans over and runs her tongue up Heather's thigh.

I say, "Yeah." Whispering. Not meaning to but saying it anyway.

"Is this okay?" says Heather Duke. She's talking to Heather McNamara but she's still looking at me.

"I—um," Heather says, back. 

"It was _very_ ," comes out of my mouth in a rush. That fucking monster is clenching in my chest, but I beat it down, with my throat closing I want it so bad. Right then I don't give a shit how it looks. I say, "I really fucking liked it, okay." And Heather Duke looks about to pass out. 

"Well, _yeah_ ," says Heather McNamara, like some granny numbskull had just told her "That Ralph Lauren makes some lovely gowns." And it occurs to me, for a second, how Heather'd had no trouble saying _with her tongue kind of flat_ , and _she went around the outside until you got used to it_. But then my brain jams gears, because Heather McNamara pulls her nightgown the rest of the way off, over her curls, and says "Okay, come on, come _on_." 

Hell on a stick. By this time I'm ready to bite something. Our legs have gotten moved around so Heather Duke's not grinding into me like she had been, but she's still rubbing her crotch against my thigh and her face against Heather's thigh, and doesn't move right away and I want her to _move_ , why doesn't she move, _Christ._ All through my body is that fucking buzzing again. So I reach between Heather's legs and touch Heather Duke's cheek, and I think I might slap her but there isn't room, so instead I just touch her with the tips of my fingers, and nudge—nudge—nudge her chin up toward Heather's cunt, like she'd just been nudging us together. 

And she just _goes_. Brings her mouth up until all I can see is her tipped-back chin in the vee between Heather's legs, and her jaw working as she kisses her open from the other side. I put my hands on her throat and her chin. I can feel her swallowing, as Heather McNamara's twenty-dollar manicure digs into her shoulders hard enough to leave marks.

"Oh," says Heather McNamara, "I'm—I really." She laughs with no breath like she does when she runs off the field after Westerburg wins a big game. "Yeah, I. Um. Fucking like that too."

And if I were thinking right I might by worried there's something to the story about Ram's quick-change cousin. 'Cause it's like, once I start making bizarro decisions that night? I can't stop. Everything just twists to the left, like some kind of XXX-rated kaleidoscope at the perverts' country fair. Like, here's Heather McNamara: and if I was gonna start batting for the other team, she's like, five-eleven, blonde, 100 pounds, with these legs that go on forever and a perfect little cheerleader's ass, which is clenching and shaking right in front of my face as she holds the back of Heather Duke's head and humps herself into her face. But what I really want, what I just can't stop doing no matter what, is putting my hands all over Heather Duke. 

Fucking Christ, it's like I have magnets in my palms. Pudgy, bulimic, bookworm Heather Duke, crying out like a weird little kitten as her throat and her jaw moved under my fingers, and I can't stop touching her. It's hard to do, I mean I'm still pinned by her hips and reaching through Heather McNamara's legs, but I just. Hand on her collarbone and she moans. Fingers on her throat and I feel her mouth open even wider, so Heather rolls her hips in a shivery little circle and cries out. Hand to her tit with her hard nipple rubbing into my palm, and she fucks against my thigh in short little bursts, her whole body _shaking_. And fuck, I want to, again, Heather McNamara is holding Heather Duke's head and arching into her mouth like I arched into her mouth, and I'm thinking of holding Heather's head, and fucking her mouth, and I touch her jaw and she sounds like drowning. There's nowhere I haven't touched with my hands, and I'm pinned down by them both, so I lean up and lean forward and lick at Heather Duke's chin and Heather McNamara's taint, and Heather Duke has to reach up and hold Heather McNamara up by the thighs as she fucks into Heather's mouth once, twice, and then holds herself hard against her face and doesn't breathe at all.

And then I help hold her up: Heather from one side and me from the other, like some kind of swaying tower. "Jesus," Heather McNamara says. She picks up her foot for long enough to collapse onto the carpet to the side, and: Heather _Duke_.

Jesus, I should laugh.

"Christ, come on," I say, and she looks at me with huge fucking saucer-eyes like she hasn't even heard. 

I should laugh, and tell everyone how she looks with her mascara running and her hair a mess and her face dripping in pussy juice.

"Heather," she says. Staring down at me, shivering. Hardly even moving.

I should hate her. I hated her every day for two years, and I should hate her now.

But I say, "God _damn_ ," and I struggle up and kiss her messy, fucked-up face, one hand behind me to balance and another on her ass to get her to fuck my thigh again. Everywhere I touch she's trembling, but she shakes her head.

"Come on, Heather," I say. We're slotted together again, rubbing. "Come on," and I grope all the sweaty dripping places I couldn't reach before: her waist and her ass and her thighs and I get my thumb between us up next to her clit and she sort of spasms and chokes out "Please," like she's actually fucking dying in my lap. 

And all of a sudden—I can't explain it. All of a sudden I feel like crying. But I'm pissed, too: like when I'm on the rag and that goddamn ice-skating Ronald McDonald commercial comes on TV at Christmas. He takes the kid's hand and I always start bawling, but at the same time I want to wring the retard's neck for messing up my mascara. The only thing you get for holding hands with a loser is a hand stained with loserness. Nobody wants that in their burger, and they don't want to snack on anyone's salty makeup run-off either. But Heather looked so small and lost, and before I know it I'm pushing up with my hips and turning us over so she's on her back on the carpet and I'm slotted up against her, one arm around her back and the other all over her tits and her stomach. 

I go "Fucking—come _on_ ," and she says "Please" again like she's ripped up her throat. 

"What, Heather? What?" I smear the juice around her cheek and her mouth, and she pants on my fingers. I have to grit my teeth, just to keep my face under control. "What do you need?" pulling up her lip, thinking about slapping her face, but weirdly my other arm is rocking her. Gentle, like you would a baby. "Show me," I say, in my caf voice, and finally she takes my hand and slides it down, down her sweaty little belly and under her Scooby-Doo undies until she's got three of my fingers slipping and sliding, twisting into her. 

And I'm like "Fuck _me_ , you're dripping," half laughing, half gasping. She turns her head away. She blushes even darker, but she pushes up into my fingers, hard. 

Then I'm thinking about Candi's hooker nails, and how the girls down at Mani Express always do mine short, and how right now Heather looks so out of her mind that she wouldn't care if I had a full set of acrylics. She's fucking _jackhammering_ herself on my fingers. Gasping like she can't breathe, with her face turned away from my face, and I'm leaning down to bite on her neck and her come-smeared face, teeth-marks and hickeys all over her chest, but at the same time, the whole time I'm holding her against me, rocking her, almost like, _cradling_ her, with my other arm. And when I throw a leg over her leg and she _moans_ and arches up and just _shakes_ , I like, pull her close, and hook my hand up into her, hard, with my face buried in her sweaty hair, and feel her like a tiny earthquake in my arms.

Well.

Maria came the next morning. She scrubbed and vacuumed and dusted the house while we watched Saturday morning cartoons in the den. After she left, the carpet looked like nothing had ever happened, and it sort of seemed like nothing had. It did, though. Even if none of the three of us ever mentioned it again.

And Jesus, Chet. I'm not a total fluff bunny. As soon as I started in on all the shit that went down after Heather told us about Candi, I knew I was never going to be able to actually show you this letter. Even though your face when you read it would be a goddamn _prize_. Even though I wished at first that I could be a fly on the wall, watching you—or Hell, that I were dead, and came back as a ghost. I'd float the letter onto your pillow, and watch your face go gobsmacked as you read it. As you unbuttoned your jeans and jerked off, just frantic, still reading it, never taking your eyes off it, and you would make those pansy-ass whining noises you always make when you get close, your face all screwed up like you're constipated, and my ghost would laugh its invisible ass off while you came all over your jeans and your hand and my letter from beyond the grave.

I'm not dead, though. Not at Westerburg _or_ Remington. So I was never actually going to give you this, even if I wanted to.

But you know—I sound like a psycho, saying this, but I almost wish—.

You know what? Never mind. 

Like it makes any fucking difference, if I write a letter and keep it secret to save my own ass, or if I keep it secret so Heather McNamara won't get grounded for stealing her parents' high-class sauce. Or if I keep it secret because aliens take over the earth and outlaw drinking and fucking. Or if I keep it secret because I think about Heather Duke, turning her head toward me, afterward, with her eyes so blue I thought I'd drown, and kissing me just once, on the lips, with her slack, wet, tender mouth.

Like it makes any difference at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> That [Ronald McDonald ice-skating commercial from the 80s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEL3w-yf5Gk).


End file.
